ITC Judge Finds Apple Did Not Violate Four HTC Patents

Back in June, it was reported that a patent dispute had been going on between Apple and HTC. The judge found that HTC had indeed been infringing upon two of Apple’s patents, and initially had ruled in Apple’s favor. Then, Bloomberg reportedthat HTC is interested in striking a deal with Apple for the patent dispute between the companies. FOSS Patents pointed out that these two patent infringements could put Android in serious trouble.

In addition, Bloomberg saidin a separate report that the battle between Apple and Google had started to heat up. Apple contributed to a consortium of $2.6 billion towards the acquisition of Nortel’s patents, which outbid Google with a total of $4.5 billion. The report revealed that Google and Apple both bidded for patents from the mobile technology company InterDigital. Question: how could a company that claims to be innovating and not stealing be this desperate for patents?

Today, a judge with the U.S. Trade Commission ruled against HTC in a patent infringement lawsuit it filed against Apple. The judge found that Apple was not violating the four patents related to power management and phone dialing, according to Reuters. A final decision will be made to uphold or reject the judge’s decision on February 17th. Analyst Mike Abramsky from RBC Capital Markets said Apple’s victory is yet another positive for the company, as it has found continued legal success against Android device makers.

Currently, Apple is also involved in many legal disputes with Samsung.